Penn State Sports Magazine
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Site Lines C O M M E N T S F R O M T H E L I O N S D E N A T B L U E W H I T E I L L U S T R A T E D . C O M APRIL 2023/VOL. 38, NO. 8 MANAGING EDITOR Matt Herb CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Mark Panus, Chris Riffer WEBSITE PUBLISHER Sean Fitz WEBSITE EDITOR Nate Bauer STAFF WRITER Greg Pickel RECRUITING REPORTER Ryan Snyder FOOTBALL ANALYST Thomas Frank Carr CONTRIBUTING WRITER Jim Carlson PHOTOGRAPHY Daniel Althouse, Bill Anderson, Steve Manuel, Mark Selders COVER PHOTOS Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics Daniel Althouse (inset) DESIGN Jeanette Blankenship, Chris Miller F F F PUBLISHER Stu Coman BUSINESS MANAGER Linda Autry ADVERTISING SALES/MARKETING Michelle DeLee-Hamilton 877-630-8768 CIRCULATION MANAGER Sarah Boone CUSTOMER SERVICE Cathy Jones, Laura Thornton, Crystal Clayton 800-421-7751 BLUE WHITE ILLUSTRATED (USPS 742-550) is published monthly, except June, by Coman Publishing Company, 905 W Main St, Ste 24F, Durham, NC 27701-2076. A one-year (11 issues) subscription is $59.00. First-class, digital and foreign rates available on request. Periodicals postage paid at Durham, NC 27701 and additional mailing offices. Printed by The Papers, Milford, Ind. POSTMASTER: Please send address corrections/changes to BLUE WHITE ILLUSTRATED, PO Box 2331, Durham NC 27702-2331. For advertising or subscription informa- tion call 1-919-688-0218 or write BLUE WHITE ILLUSTRATED, PO Box 2331, Dur- ham NC 27702. W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M ON THE PSU MEN'S BASKETBALL TEAM'S LATE-SEASON SURGE TO THE NCAA TOURNAMENT … I want us to get to the point where this loss [to Texas in the second round of the NCAA Tournament] is a disappointment. But we're not there yet. I'm disappointed to some extent anytime we lose. And I do feel we could have won had we shot better. We weren't completely outclassed. But I can't be disappointed in any major way when you look at the season as a whole, and the history of the program. — Blue Band What a run. Possibly the most enjoyable end-of-season run in the PSU Big Ten era (2001's peak was greater, but that team was much more volatile; the NIT title runs were fun but ultimately not as mean- ingful). This group clicked into gear after the loss at Maryland, kept winning, and the few times they faced adversity they never blinked. The bounce-back after the Rutgers loss, the frantic last-minute push vs. Purdue in Big Ten title game, the 10-0 blitz vs. Texas to take a 3-point lead with three minutes to go — all proved this team was absolutely unshakeable. Easy to root for guys who never, ever quit. — vslice02 Great season, so much fun, looking forward to the Micah Shrews- berry coaching extension, the transfer portal pickups, and the offseason workouts with the new 2023-24 version of Penn State hoops. With a great coach, the college basketball season is long enough to have your players jelling at season's end. We've seen it twice now, in two consecutive years. — aferrelli I am sad for our seniors, but man, what a year. After 12 years, we finally got to and won a game in the NCAA Tournament. I loved it and look forward to where we are heading. — Drken22 Shrews made a go of it with kids from Siena, Bucknell and Drexel. If he stays, I'm guessing we are a very attrac- tive destination for transfers. — 34ever Heck of a season, nothing but pride for this team, and how they performed against Texas, never giving up. Some nights, the shots just don't fall. That's why it's tough to win a title even when you're the most talented team in the field. They gave us a ton of fun these past couple weeks. — wbcbus ON THE FOOTBALL TEAM'S SMALLER-THAN-AVERAGE DEFENSIVE LINE … Aside from not getting the bigger defensive tackles — and I stipulate there are not a lot of them — we have recruited poorly at DT for quite some time. If you look at the last five classes, off the top of my head, we have only signed two kids who could be considered fairly highly regarded — PJ Mustipher and Coziah Izzard. We can add Zane Durant, but he is going to have to prove he is one of those outliers who can be really good at 280-285 pounds. We have been forced to take too many projects. The end result is that our core rotation guys are just OK, and we really have no depth. I don't necessarily doubt that other schools have similarly sized guys at defensive tackle (290-295), but I suspect their guys are higher-level talents. If PSU had a rotation of 5-6 guys who were really good, and all weighed 295, I think we would be fine. — Ceasar With Manny Diaz's scheme and the general high level of athleticism, the defense is good enough to win nine, maybe 10 games by themselves. There are probably going to be two to three games where you're gonna have to put up points to win. This is the formula for being elite in today's game. We seem to keep harping on last year's Michigan game, and what I watched was the ineptitude of the offense causing the game to spiral out of control. It's no wonder the D eventually ran out of gas. Against Ohio State, all the turnovers on offense doomed them. Generally speaking, we're pointing the finger in the wrong direction. — Great Gatsby I recall reading in the past that finding elite defensive tackles is extremely difficult. We're not the only program having that issue, as others have pointed out. Hopefully, we can survive with what we've got and maybe we get a surprise or two from somebody already on the roster. — mickey_PSU Unfortunately, Ohio State and Michigan do not currently have this problem at DT. It is probably the one thing keeping our roster from matching theirs in 2023. — PaulPosluvzme 4 A P R I L 2 0 2 3 Coach Micah Shrewsberry guided Penn State to a 23-14 finish in 2022-23. It was only the 12th 20-win season in program history. PHOTO BY DANIEL ALTHOUSE